Farmworkers ask Taco Bell for aid in working conditions

Associated Press

Published Saturday, February 03, 2001

IMMOKALEE -- Farmworkers from Immokalee plan a series of protests at Taco Bell restaurants, saying the fast-food chain should do more to improve the working conditions of the people who pick tomatoes that go into tacos and burritos.

Farmworkers joined by University of Florida students plan to demonstrate Sunday outside a Taco Bell in Gainesville. Protests later this month are planned in Sarasota, Tampa and Tallahassee.

The farmworkers will call for a national boycott of Irvine, Calif.-based Taco Bell, which buys many of its tomatoes from Florida, if it doesn't agree to play a role in talks for better wages and working conditions in Florida's tomato fields.

Workers currently earn about $7,500 a year.

''Taco Bell is buying a product that is harvested with the equivalent of sweatshop labor,'' said Lucas Benitez, a spokesman for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. ''We're working in bad conditions with a meager salary. We have no benefits like overtime, medical benefits, nothing.''

Coalition officials asked to meet with Taco Bell officials last year to discuss working conditions but never got a response.

''Any employer and employee dispute is unfortunate, but we don't feel it's fair to interfere with labor disputes that do not involve our employees,'' said Taco Bell spokeswoman Laurie Gannon.

Florida supplies most of the United States' tomatoes during the winter. The state's tomato industry has a crop value of about $500 million.